Obscured by Clouds. The rough and ready blog of a cloud benighted biologist and amateur astronomer. Astroblog will cover my interests in astronomy, biology and Life, the Universe and Everything.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

The Sun is Dogged

Reader Graham Barnett sends in this marvellous image of a parhelion, or Sun Dog. This was seen at Parkdale Victoria about 4:10 PM 19-07-09 for quite a while. The images were taken by his son-in-law with his digital camera (click to embiggen).

Sund Dogs tend to be rather rare in Australia, and are formed in a manner similar to rainbows, but represent the suns light being reflected back by thin plate like-ice crystals high in the atmosphere.